Apple ]['s and C=64 video/ Bad Feelings...

From: tiborj <cerebral_at_michianatoday.com>
Date: Sun Jun 22 21:01:07 1997

At 05:04 PM 6/22/97 -0700, you wrote:
>On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, A.R. Duell wrote:
>
>> > from, there are compnents of computers that are shear art as the disk
>> > controller in the apple II (from what I read the board was drawn 'not
>>
>> I'll have to disagree with you there. IMHO the Disk II controller is
>> nothing other than a kludge. It could certainly have done with a track 0
>> sensor (that would have stopped the heads from banging on start-up). And,
>> as a hardware designer, I don't like designs where most of the
>> functionality is handled in software.
>
>Blasphemer! No really though, if you must call the Disk ][ controller a
>kludge, at least qualify it by calling it a beautiful kludge, which it is.
>Also, having software control over the disk drive is not a bad thing at
>all. It allowed you to play directly with the bits on the disks and make
>your own disk formats. It provided years of fun and challenge during my
>teenage days trying to crack the ever-more-complicated disk copy
>protection schemes that the software houses kept creating by way of being
>able to control the disk circuitry from software.
>
>> > totally in the dark about). Case in point, Exidy Sorceror, I purchased
>> > one and sent it to Sam Ismael, he is now looking for information, not
>> > very many people ever seen one, much less an ad for one, sometimes the
>>
>> Somewhere I have a Techref for the Sorceror, and one for the S100 adapter
>> for it. I also have some user group newsletters, etc. Feel free to pester
>> me on this list if you want me to dig this stuff out.
>>
>> BTW, it's not up for grabs. I need it to maintain my Sorceror :-)
>
>Tony, any information you can e-mail me or send me concerning the
>Sorcerer would be appreciated. I need information about the power
>requirements, plus just general information such as how much RAM it came
>with, processor type, built-in languages, etc. Thanks.
>
>Sam

Hello there, I an fairly new here, but I am interested in all kinds of
hardware and software hacks.
Someone out there mentioned the 'sophistication' of the Apple ]['s video
addressing, saying that the
RAM refresh steals CPU cycles, Apples method is worse than a kludge, it was
simply a crufted idea. yes, the Disk II is an elegent kludge,as ALL of my
homebrewed electronic gear are kludges just to make them work!<G>. My first
computer was a Commodore 64, and comparing it to apples(not oranges :0) the
64 is WAY more advanced, and it too shares a medium populated motherboard. I
can do 90% of the multimedia stuff on the 64 as you can with a P-133! my
point being, the Apple and 64 both had 6502 compatible proccessors, but the
6510 used by the 64 has smarter memory mangament, and it is fast enough to
refresh the ram AND do sprite graphics AND use bit mapped memory. adding
perhiperals to the 64 via the serial bus worked NICE, and I can prove
history is repeating itself. Look at the new USB (Universal Serial Bus)
standard, where they want to run evrything from keyboards, mice, modems
etc... the Wintel croud calls it BRAND NEW IDEA, but we did this 10 years or
more ago. I got a good taste of Apple's machines in school, and they were
ok, but nothing I would ever try to own. the only drawback to the C=64 is
that it did not have an expansion bus built in, however it did have a
expansion connector which you can hook up a passive backplane to.

I dont have much classic stuff but here is what I have:

3 CoCo's, one with 1 floppy drive, all 16K machines. the floppy drive as
sold by radio shack is actually an IBM compatible 5.25 drive! the ONLY
difference is an attempt by radio shack to foil anyone trying to USE off the
shelf floppy drives by placing the ribbon connector on the opposite side,
and because of this, the data cable was too short to connect the normal
drive. But the controller card and pinouts are all the same IBM standard.
The reason was that radio scrap wanted to charge you $400 for adding a drive
that costed $50 max at the time. so IBM drives are not limited and can be
used in any way, it just takes more hacker skill to implement it.
3 Commodore 64's, one is souped up with JiffyDOS, 1 meg REU, and 1.6 MEG
floppy drive.
2 Commodore 128's both work and was extensively used, and because of this,
they are on the verge of expiring... the keyboards on the 128's were never
as durable as the 64's.
1 IBM XT works, but needs XT keyboard.
1 IBM 286-12, works too, and loaded with MORE TTL than the XT was....
Now the rest of the bunch are not classic, but I will place them here to
make the list complete.
1 Acer 386-33, used as a file server
1 home built AMD 586 machine which is what I am composing this message from.
Received on Sun Jun 22 1997 - 21:01:07 BST